INNOVATION SAGA – “BUILDING CUSTOMER R&D” #1 The 2-Second Tent: When listening turns frustration into delight

Innovating with and for customers: When listening becomes the engine of value creation

Author: Serge DARRIEUMERLOU, founder of Decathlon’s Innovation Platform

Customer R&D is not a methodology.

It is a culture, a way of rethinking innovation starting from real life, real uses, and real emotions.

It places listening, observation and co-creation at the heart of research, to design solutions that are fair, meaningful and desirable because they emerge from people’s lives.

This spirit can be found in a story everyone knows: the “2-second tent,” a product that became iconic not because of its technology, but because of what it reveals about deeply human innovation.

Listening Before Inventing

At the beginning, nothing suggested a revolution.

A tent was just a tent, a standard, ordinary object with fixed parameters: number of people, weight, strength, waterproofing.

Engineers tried to make it lighter, designers tried to make it more attractive, product managers tried to fit it into a range.

Then one day, instead of talking about the product, we started talking about the experience.

We went camping with customers, not to test prototypes, but to live through their real situations. And by listening to them, something became obvious: the most unpleasant part of camping isn’t the rain… it’s pitching the tent.

After the drive, the fatigue, and impatient children, that moment becomes a chore.

And yet, no one mentioned it. It was considered “normal,” simply part of the experience, endured rather than chosen.

The Question That Changed Everything

One day, on a campsite, a camper said:

“My dream? I take the tent, throw it in the air… and it’s ready.”

In one sentence, he had invented the concept.

The team heard it.

Eleven months later, the 2-second tent was born.

This product wasn’t created in a design office but within a space of dialogue and trust. It came from deep listening, from a dream that could finally be spoken and heard.

Technological innovation - the instant unfolding system - was only the consequence, the “how.”

The Lesson of the 2-Second Tent

This example shows that Customer R&D is not a method but a mindset.

A culture of curiosity, humility and meaning.

It teaches us that real innovation is not about doing things “better,” but about doing what is right: answering a real need, bringing back pleasure, removing irritants, and that doing “better” starts by responding to a genuine expectation.

The 2-second tent is more than a practical product.

It is a symbol of listening.

It reminds us that the greatest innovations don’t always emerge from technology, but from a renewed gaze on human experience.

Towards a New Culture of Innovation

This is Customer R&D: learning to listen to what the customer does not yet say, observing what they live, turning frustration into opportunity. It means creating the conditions for real listening: moments of interaction with users, connecting their insights with our knowledge, questioning internal experts to set new objectives, revealing new potential.

It is what bridges innovation, simplicity and humanity.